A bit nervous about this off season. Its looking like a rebuilding, retooling ect year. Now Duka clearly does not want to be here. If he stays, how will that affect the locker room and team chemistry? Hoping we can get a few sheckels for him and move on. Not reaching for the xanax just yet but will crank up some old tunes from "The Replacements". Seems fitting this time of year.
It's a bit worrying that our new standard operating procedure is to cut 10 players, gain back 7 college kids through the draft or home grown option, then wait for the summer transfer window to fill out the roster. Rinse and repeat.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dilly-Duka/252886038639?fref=ts is his fb page.. it's right there on the front page of his wall.
Duka is good. And I think he has the potential to be really, really good. He's been around the youth national team scenes, and if he plays consistently may get a sniff with the big boys. Now, I do question how well this coaching staff can coax the best out of young talent that is still a bit rough around the edges. But, I hope we don't trade him. I want to see him healthy and a whole season with someone like Higuian. Remember how GBS got the best out young guys like Lenhart and tRR. I think Duka has more talent then all those guys. Now how will Higs be at getting the best out of players like that?
The incident this year wasn't the only one. Two years ago his parents actually called the front office asking why their boy wasn't playing. He is spoiled and a baby. Good riddance.
Coaching and management is more of a problem than Duka. Duka has talent and the skills to contribute if healthy.
Been played out of position mostly. I think 1 more chance would be smart, but I think we all know he's gone come draft day.
I'm not trying to pile on Dilly, but 2 years ago I was sitting in the very north end of the upper west stands. I look over and there is Dilly Duka sitting by himself texting away on his blackberry. It struck me as odd, because I thought the players always sit in a suite somewhere. I've never seen a player sitting up in the stands. Granted he never played that year but it shows his mentality. Higuain was a little upset with him on multiple occasions this year. I think Duka just needs a change of location. He's a quality player and we"ll get something for him. The bigger issue is Why are we always having somebody in need of a change of scenery?
The fact is, we don't really have a spot for Duka. He isn't a wing player, he's a CM/CAM type. Higuain is in that spot. Now, if we every played an inverted triangle with Duka/Higuain at the top ahead of a dedicated DM, then he'd have a spot. But Robert must have 2 CM/DM types in at all times (pick 2 of O'Rourke, Mirosevic, George, Tchani) and he prefers Tchani and Grossman (in the past) to Duka as an attacking CM for reasons that pass understanding. When we play Duka wide, we simply don't have any speed to open up the field for Higuain to make passes. Gaven on one side, Duka on the other. Doesn't exactly give opposing FBs nightmares, or keep them in their own half much. I think we are going to draft a speedier midfield option, and just go with Meram, Speas, and Finaly this year.
Another year and another quality player(Duka) butting heads with coaching staff or FO. To be fair, maybe its a maturity issue or simply not a good fit for whatever reason. I have to wonder if Duka did not have the injury bug last year, would that have made a difference in his current status. The Super Draft is more like smoke and mirrors with the hope of finding a diamond in the rough. It's starting to look like the Crew are a puzzle with to many missing pieces even with the quality additions from last year. Really hoping this team will pick up two quality defenders and a solid midfielder at the very least.
And this sort of situation is where I feel things like the Cole Grossman non-trade come back to bite us. If you go for the optimistic roster outlook I laid out and we get the two paperwork hampered internationals in and we sign Luthy to a home gown deal as our third keeper you know how many of our picks we can give up of miss on and have a full roster without any other moves? None. If we did all of the above that would take us to 25 we have five picks, two superdraft, three supplemental, we used one to get Schoenfeld. It's not always about getting something really really valuable for your pieces sometimes it's just about getting a chip to put on the table. It's about having something to list on your side of the ledger that you're giving up to make a deal look a little better on the other side even if neither of you really think it is. It's about playing PR to both sides fans. It'd be nice to have another pick or allocation money to package with Duka, anyone think Cole wasn't at least worth a supplemental pick? We'll probably trade Duka we won't get much back and it will be infuriating, we just don't seem to be very good at this lately. What is the last trade we won? Tchani I guess?
Maybe the rest of the league?? Yeah, I know he got drafted. Doesn't mean anyone wanted to give up anything for him.
If you believe Garth Lagerwey there were plenty of teams willing to give up something; we just didn't do our due diligence or we let everyone call our bluff. Could he have been lying to talk up a new signing to his fans, sure, but I don't buy it.
Eh, I'm not so sure. We should note that RSL is one of the better teams in the league, so there were quite a few teams that had to have passed on Grossman (like most of them) before he was taken (as I believe that waiver claims are in reverse order of finish).
17:15 So we pick Cole Grossman and in the background of the call we hear… I’m not going to repeat the word… colorful profanity coming from the line so clearly they were a team that felt Cole Grossman could have benefited their team. And then within 20 minutes we had a team call and say what do you want for Cole? Either he is lying or there was at least one team willing to give something for Cole. Again I don't care if that thing has almost no value it can be something that you throw in when trying to make another trade happen and we don't have a lot of those extras right now. I don't think we have any allocation money and we have very little picks to play with if we're going to field a full roster. Getting anything back for an asset would have been useful to have something to package with Duka in a trade.
Regarding the draft, it should be noted that Chicago got Austin Berry picking #9 last year. Just sayin', there are good players out there.
Then it must have been one of the 4 teams that picked after RSL. RSL finished 5th over all last season. They did not pick early. Looks like teams were bluffing to try to get something for nothing, figuring other teams didn't want him either. That seems like MLS to me. And all you prove by the video is that Langerway said it--not the truth or falsity of what he said. Now if you had a tape of the conference call for the waiver draft.... Look, you may be right, but I'm of the opinion that MLS teams are cheap and won't pay if they think they can get something for free. Not that draft picks are worth much in any case. We likely have *already* done better with the Homegrown players we signed than what most teams will get in the draft.